Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host Mike
Rugnetta, this intro was written on Sunday, March 23 at 11:32PM
eastern, and we have a formidable show for you this
week. First, Georgia goes on a no buy journey where she
attempts to make it nearly three months without purchasing new
clothing as per the seventy five day hard style challenge. She
talks about her experiences with Kyle Checa and host of the
podcast articles of interest Avery Truffelman. Then I talk
with Mike Masnik, founder of the stalwart technology block Tech
Dirt about legislation that could be introduced in The US as
soon as this week that would sunset section two thirty of the
Communications Indecency Act, 26 words which, quote, paved the
way for the modern Internet.
Now why would anybody wanna get rid of those? And also typing
tests. But first, let's talk about a few of the things that
have happened since the last time you heard from us. I have
four stories for you this week. Boston Celtic ska mainstay, the
dropkick Murphys, were not banned from x for comments
frontman Ken Casey made on stage critical of the US
administration.
Over the weekend, a post went viral claiming that the
Northeast punk band rebooted from the social site after Casey
pointed out a concert goer wearing a red MAGA hat and joked
that Elon Musk's black dark MAGA variant is the quote, Elon Musk
true Nazi edition. On her newsletter, the handbasket,
Marissa Cabas reports that the podcast Midas Touch shared a
clip of the joke which was shared again by an account
claiming that it had led to the band's suspension, but it had
not. Cabas confirmed quote, the dropkick Murphy's account was
banned as early as June 2024, but regardless at least seven
news stories centering on this claim had been published by the
morning after the first posts. Don't believe everything you
read on the internet, I guess. X has, however, seemingly
suspended accounts connected with Turkish opposition in the
midst of large scale protests in Istanbul following the arrest of
Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of the city and presidential candidate
running against Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
PCMag reports that most suspended accounts quote,
belonged to grassroots activists with followers in the low tens
of thousands who shared protest locations for students.
According to X's transparency report, they continue, it
complied with 68% of Turkey's government requests to take down
content in the second half of twenty twenty four. Speaking of
ostensible governments, multiple news outlets report that the US
government is close to finalizing a deal for the sale
of TikTok. Oracle, whose servers house TikTok's US recommendation
engine and user data was once thought to be the preferred
purchaser. But late last week, Reuters reported that quote,
White House led talks are coalescing around a plan for the
biggest non Chinese investors in parent company ByteDance to up
their stakes and acquire the short video apps US operations,
end quote.
Among the investors are Susquehanna International Group
and General Atlantic. Reuters reports that private equity firm
KKR is also involved. And finally, biotech and personal
genomics company twenty three and Me has filed for chapter 11
bankruptcy protection and its CEO, founder Anne Wojcicki, has
said she will step down, although she will retain a seat
on the board. This leads to a number of questions about what
happens to the genetics information of the 15 some
million people who have used the service in the event of the
impending liquidation of all of its assets. California's
attorney general Rob Bonta released a statement on March 21
reading in part quote, due to the trove of sensitive consumer
data twenty three and me has amassed, attorney general Bonta
reminds Californians of their right to direct the deletion of
their genetic data under the genetic information privacy act
and California consumer privacy act, end quote.
Though these laws were passed in California, most websites make
these features available to all users regardless of their
location. So thanks California, I guess. We'll put a link to AG
Bonta's statement in the description which includes
directions for deleting your 23 and me data if you need them. In
show news this week, this is the first episode of Neverpost
officially distributed by Radiotopia. So that is very
exciting.
If this is news to you, just click back one episode and
listen to our explainer about what Radiotopia is and what this
means for the show. And if this is your first never post joining
us from some other part of the Radiotopia family of shows,
welcome. We are very happy that you're here. As mentioned last
episode, I was on Matt Silverman's influence podcast
talking about my career in media and what it is like making
content these days. So that is out now.
We'll put a link to that in the show notes. And also, I had the
immense pleasure of speaking with Kurt White, a clinical
psychotherapist, a clinical social worker, and a teacher at
the Smith College School for Social Work, as well as the vice
president of community partnerships, communications,
and development at the Brattleboro retreat where he
hosts their podcast unraveling. It's actually kind of a cousin
show to never post. Both shows are made by some of the same
people. Kurt and I talked about how it is that, our interactions
with the Internet can help us construct our sense of self, and
how this becomes the source of all kinds of anxiety for all
kinds of people for a lot of different reasons.
You can listen to our chat over on unraveling. We'll put a link
in the show notes. And we liked it so much that we're actually
gonna publish a segment length version on the next episode of
Neverpost. But if you wanna listen to it now, please go
check out unraveling with Kurt and his co host Mary. They are
amazing.
It's a great show. We're all really huge Kurt and Mary fans
over here on Neverpost. Okay. That's the news I have for you
this week. Next, Georgia and the 75 hard style challenge, then me
and Mike Masnik on section two thirty.
But first, each member of the team went out and bought a
mechanical keyboard and did not touch it until we sat down to
record a typing tournament. In our interstitials this week, the
team uses monkeytype.com to see who got those WPMs.
Jason Oberholtzer: Hey, type freaks. Welcome to the big show.
First round, Georgia Hampton, Hans Butoh in the blue corner.
Georgia Hampton, will you tell the folks at home what you're
typing with today?
Georgia Hampton: I'm rocking a Red Dragon Ultimate Gaming Rig,
model number s one three four in the color mint green.
Jason Oberholtzer: A strong addition to the fields. Georgia
will be typing out of the left side of your headphones.
Georgia, please march your way over there.
Georgia Hampton: Aye aye.
Jason Oberholtzer: And in the red corner, Hans Buto Hans, what
are you typing with today?
Hans Buetow: You will never defeat my LUT detect j one
twenty. Corporate black borrowed from my wife's work.
Jason Oberholtzer: Hans will be typing out of the right
earphone. Hans, march your way over there.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Hans did a backflip. Woah. I
Hans Buetow: am so ready for this. Position your microphones.
Jason Oberholtzer: Okay, everyone. We will be typing 100
words. The first person to clear their 100 words will go on to
the final round at the end of this show. I will count you in.
Are you all on monkey type?
Georgia Hampton: Hell yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer: Just staring at your words.
Hans Buetow: Okay. Okay. I'm trying not to read them.
Jason Oberholtzer: I wanna see your hands on camera. Your hands
can leave frame and begin typing in three, two, one,
Mike Rugnetta: type. Georgia is locked in. I'm just euphoric.
Hans Buetow: This is so intense. I'm I'm
Mike Rugnetta: so bad. Hans is really putting putting the knees
into it. He's really got the stance of someone who is working
very hard.
Jason Oberholtzer: The longest I have not seen Georgia smile in
my entire life.
Mike Rugnetta: Oh, first blink. That's the first blink of the
round.
Jason Oberholtzer: This is kind of a sleep aid for me. This is
good.
Hans Buetow: On. I'm getting there.
Mike Rugnetta: Collin's digging deep. Woah. Georgia's done.
Hans Buetow: Oh, 90
Mike Rugnetta: 92.
90 two?
Georgia Hampton came to win.
Georgia, Field: That's how you do it, baby. Alright.
Hans Buetow: I can see nothing. I can see nothing. Me.
Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. Georgia Hampton will be back on
the mint machine in the final round of the tournament.
Hans Buetow: Georgia, what were you what what's your WPM? Oh my
god. 84. Yeah. It was close to that.
What's your accuracy? 92%. Why are
Georgia Hampton: you coming for me like this?
Hans Buetow: What what percent? You already
Georgia Hampton: lost, man.
Hans Buetow: What what what percent was your accuracy?
Georgia Hampton: 92.
Hans Buetow: God. Yeah. I was close to that too. Okay.
Mike Masnick: Okay. I believe it. I also
Mike Rugnetta: am I also am good typer.
Georgia Hampton: I am now learning I hate this keyboard.
That was it's so annoying. I hate
Jason Oberholtzer: using it. Well, alright, sickos. We'll see
you back here in twenty some odd minutes.
Georgia, Field: Oh, god.
Avery Trufelman: Okay. So what was the actual garment that
broke you?
Georgia Hampton: It
was this faded blue bomber jacket. So that's me, obviously.
I'm talking with Avery Truffelman, host of Articles of
Interest, a podcast which explores fashion, clothing, and
our relationship to both. We'll get to the bomber jacket and
how, yes, it broke me. But first, here's me two months ago.
Georgia, Field: Okay. It's day one of the seventy five day hard
style challenge. It's 01/06/2025, which feels like, an
ominous day to start this. But you know what?
Georgia Hampton: Let's do it. First of all, it is 29 degrees
in the city
Georgia, Field: of Chicago, Illinois, but it feels like 13
degrees. So I think we're looking at pants. Maybe. God.
I'm already so stressed out.
Why is it that the second I decide to do this, I'm like,
what are clothes and have I ever worn them? What is this? Who
bought this stuff? Not me.
Oh, god. Okay.
Georgia Hampton: The seventy five day hard style no buy
challenge is a TikTok trend started by fashion influencer
Mandy Lee last year. She's also known by her handle old loser in
Brooklyn. Mandy presents the challenge as a way to save
money, to learn about your own closet, and ideally, a bit more
about your personal style.
Georgia Hampton: The rule's fairly straightforward. Get
dressed every single day for seventy five days straight and
document all of your looks. Don't buy anything new. Don't
introduce anything new to your wardrobe. This one's really,
really important because the point is to really get creative
and rely on your own brain and your own closet for inspiration.
Georgia Hampton: During the no buy, one stops consuming in
order to confront their closet. Put new outfits together with
what's already there. After seventy five days, your clothes
buying habits are hopefully more intentional.
Georgia Hampton: While you're going through this journey and
documenting your outfits, you're going to be collecting a dataset
of what you actually wear. And this acts like a sort of catalog
to track what you're really, really wearing so you can enjoy
your clothes in a new way and discover any wardrobe gaps that
might exist.
Georgia Hampton: By documenting your outfits, Mandy means
posting, and people do.
Georgia, Field: Today is my first day joining in on Mandy
Lee's seventy five day style challenge, and I'm really
excited.
I wanna, like, lift my spirits. So here's me documenting day
one.
And I'm wearing just like a black turtleneck, and I decided
to wear just this vintage navy blue button down on top of it
because I haven't worn it in a while.
I wore a Saksha jacket from Mexico, secondhand Coach bag,
vintage Ralph Sunnies from Venice. And I think I wanna pair
it with this red bag because I love doing a pop of red with
gingham. I love this outfit.
Georgia Hampton: The No Buy is its own version of a show and
tell. It's between a get ready with me and a haul video. It's
also kind of a brag, a way to show off what you already have
in your closet. Let me tell you about mine, my closet. I have a
complicated relationship to my clothes, and my wardrobe is in a
constant state of flux.
I have a closet with a dozen or so coats in it and another one
full of pants and dresses and skirts and shoes. I have 36
pairs of shoes, including heels. And finally, I have a dresser of
shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, and, like, three more pairs of
pants. I adore shopping, and I window shop online daily. I
browse Depop.
I always have a new pair of pants open in a tab on my
computer. I go to vintage markets every couple of weeks
and often end up leaving with something or several things. For
my whole life, buying clothes has been a salve for a bad day
or a painful breakup or a funk. But I tend to overbuy garments
I'd consider staples, stuff I can wear all the time. That
means I've wound up with 26 total pairs of pants, a lot of
turtlenecks, and a lot of black.
My closet is full of repeats. Three identical black
turtlenecks, a section of my closet dedicated to eight black
dresses that are almost all the same length. I tend to put
together uniforms and stick with them. I wear the same pair of
Docs every day despite having 35 other pairs of shoes to choose
from. I wear the same earrings every day.
And that sameness is what often drives me to go buy something
special and new, even if it's a fourth identical black
turtleneck. I've wanted to break out of this for a while. I just
want variety. And I do have some colorful pieces in my wardrobe.
I have skirts.
I have cool vintage jackets. I have interesting rings and
necklaces. Like, the tools are there. I know they are. I just
have to make myself use them.
And I was hoping that the no buy could hold my hand to the fire
and force myself to even just add more uniforms to the roster.
There's no world where I stop wearing mostly black. I like
wearing black. And I also think changing that would terrify
everyone who knows me. But I did want to spice things up, play
around some more, have fun.
I wasn't going to post my outfits every day on TikTok or
whatever, but I did document them in another way by recording
myself with the Voice Memo app daily.
Georgia, Field: We got, little black turtleneck top that's like
a tank top under a cotton, like, bright green sweater, little
western belt with a silver buckle, these carpenter jeans
that I wear all the time, and then yellow socks that are sort
of a butter yellow, which I'm gonna wear with my little
loafers.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I think we got it. Day one down, only 74
to go. That first day, I did pretty well. And for a week, it
felt fun to shop in my own closet instead of online.
I was actually clawing my way out of my all black outfit
everyday purgatory. But as the days ticked on, I started to
feel different.
Georgia, Field: I'm in
that place
where I don't like any of my clothes, and I feel like I've
never put on clothes in my life.
Georgia Hampton: At first, I blame the weather. And I mean,
it is hard to put together multiple slayful outfits when
what I really need to do is wear the thickest, warmest sweater I
own multiple days in a row. But that wasn't really the problem.
Georgia, Field: Something about, like like, documenting this,
like, sucks.
Like, ugh, god. I feel like
Georgia Hampton: I like, I wanna just magically have a better
relationship to my clothes or, like, know how to put a cool
outfit together that's different than the way I normally dress.
But, like, why would I wanna do that? This is just my normal my
normal life. Like, I don't I'm not even posting photos of
these. Like, all you're hearing is me losing it.
The longer I documented my process, the more I felt this
pressure, guilt, shame. I did not feel closer to my personal
style. If anything, I felt like the opposite. Rooting around in
my closet revealed the holes in my wardrobe, but in a painful
way. Like, I have this amazing pair of striped pants that I was
excited to style until I realized they just don't fit me
anymore.
I found this cropped chestnut brown sweatshirt that I had
bought maybe, like, five years ago, tried it on, and genuinely
couldn't understand why I had bought it in the first place. It
fit so weird on me. The neckline was too structured. It tugged
upwards in this really weird way when I lifted my arms. Like, why
did I even own this?
So I was stuck in all black again, recording myself
describing the same uniform outfits that I've always worn
since time in memorial. I wasn't on a journey of personal style
discovery. I was trapped in the past and unable to leave.
Avery Trufelman: Yeah. When you're confronted by your
closet, you're confronted with all of your past selves. It's a
way of, like, having to learn to live with your past, which is
rough.
Georgia Hampton: That's Avery again. And I wanted to talk to
her about why the no buy challenge made me feel so bad.
And she said that that's kind of the point.
Avery Trufelman: This is something that I've been
wrestling with for a very long time. And I think it's something
that's so deep and fundamental, and it has to do with our
relationship to our own desires, our own sense of fulfillment.
And every time the promise of a new garment comes along, it's
the promise of a new self. And that's part of, like, getting
right with yourself, is, realizing, okay, understanding
who you are, how much capacity you have for change, how much
you have changed from the past. I mean, it's like existential
stuff.
Georgia Hampton: But it's tricky to know where and how I need to
change when it comes to clothes. On the one hand, denying myself
the desire that comes from shopping feels like ignoring key
parts of myself, the parts of me that truly find joy in playing
around with clothes. But on the other hand, I've been chasing
that promise of a new self for years. I'd buy a black sweater
and feel renewed for a minute, and then my eye would start
wandering again.
Avery Trufelman: It's part of why I don't do Instagram or
TikTok because those things are like desire engines. I am going
to look at these things. I'm going to see what other people
have. I'm going to see how they comport themselves, and I am
going to find some lack in myself. I'm going to I don't
know.
I was I was on Instagram for a little bit and immediately was
like, oh, everything I do is wrong. Like, all my clothes are
wrong. Everything I I need to change it all. So it's this,
like, complicated wrestling with desire all the time. It really
vexes me a lot.
Georgia Hampton: I wasn't expecting to hear Avery, of all
people, tell me that she goes through this push and pull of
existential turmoil around clothes. But it's also exactly
what I deal with too. Any video on TikTok, any Instagram story
by a friend of a friend, I can't help myself but laser focus on
their cool pair of shoes or that plaid sweater they have as a new
potential purchase that I could make. And removing the
possibility of continuing this practice forced me to contend
with its spoils. Namely, confronting a closet full of a
lot of the same stuff and lacking a lot of clothing I
actually need.
In a way, that's the no buy doing its job, by forcing me to
look squarely at my closet without distraction. But my
conversation with Avery made me realize that my discomfort
didn't really feel like this big confrontation with desire. The
thing that was so unbearably horrible about this process
wasn't my wardrobe. It was documenting my outfits. But why?
Why did that suck so much more than anything else? I was
wrestling with this question when I talked to Kyle Chaeka,
the columnist from The New Yorker, for my segment about
having fun online. And in addition to his many other
accolades, Kyle also wrote a book called The Longing for
Less, which was about minimalism. So I figured I'd ask
him this question. Why did documenting this process feel so
terrible?
Kyle Chayka: I mean, like you're you're dressing for the
internet. You're performing this exercise in order to generate
more content, which in a way is another form of stuff like,
you're contributing to the general mess of the world by
putting out another video even though it's about not buying
stuff. So to me, improving your relationship with stuff should
be about stripping away the layers and stripping away the
like meta meta quality of the act on the internet and just
confronting the thing itself.
Georgia Hampton: So I mean, thinking of it that way, how do
you succeed at a no buy challenge?
Kyle Chayka: By not buying anything and then not posting
about it.
Georgia Hampton: By recording my daily outfits, I put myself
under a microscope, scrutinizing something I do every day. And
that started off okay. But over time, I got more judgmental,
more self critical. And I was doing it because I felt like I
was performing. By virtue of creating a document, I created
an audience of myself and, I mean, you listening to this
right now.
It made everything a performance, and that
performance did not come naturally to me. It felt
horrible.
Georgia, Field: Okay. So I'm just lying in bed right now
thinking about outfits and how I can kinda play around more with
my closet. And I felt myself feeling so stressed and so
guilty. And I I I wanted to record myself kind
Georgia Hampton: of going through this because, like, what
the hell is this?
Georgia, Field: Why why should I feel bad about this? And I think
it's because I'm
Georgia Hampton: doing this for every like, four people.
Georgia, Field: I think I'm predicting judgment.
Georgia Hampton: Every half baked criticism I had of my
clothes gained a body and a brain and a voice. The second I
realized I was documenting myself for an audience, I got
lost in this mindset where, like Avery described, I worried that
my clothes were wrong and that I needed to, quote, unquote, fix
my closet. But rather than being dressed, I'd become fixated on
getting dressed. And that's not the point of the no buy
challenge. Videos show people who already have their outfit
put together.
And I'm sure they also stood in front of their closet and felt
the way I felt, the all too common, ugh, I have nothing to
wear feeling. But with a no buy, you're not supposed to show your
work. You're supposed to show your cool vintage jacket. But I
was sick of this show and tell from hell. It wasn't working.
So after telling Avery about the challenge and the difference
between getting dressed and being dressed, I did mention my
personal experience. I don't think I told you this. I did try
this.
Avery Trufelman: I was gonna ask. Yeah. Okay. Let it go.
Georgia Hampton: Well, I lasted about three and a half weeks.
Avery Trufelman: Wow. Hey.
Mike Rugnetta: That's pretty good.
Georgia Hampton: But no, I'm serious. Too kind. You're too
kind.
Avery Trufelman: I'm really serious, though.
Georgia Hampton: I had kind of assumed that Avery would chide
me for giving up so quickly, but she didn't. And I'm grateful for
that because I wanted to shut up the part of me that somehow
still felt guilty. And it's a feeling I wrestled with a lot on
the day when I stopped doing the no buy. So
Georgia, Field: I did a bit of a whoopsie uh-oh yesterday.
Went to a vintage market with a friend,
and I did did buy a couple things.
Georgia Hampton: I hear a chorus of booing. But listen. It feels
a
Georgia, Field: lot better doing this as in, like, buying
something vintage than buying anything new. I'm very much
gonna stick to that, but
Georgia Hampton: I broke I broke no buy edge.
Georgia, Field: I I betrayed you all, but
Georgia Hampton: I don't know. You'll have to forgive me.
Georgia, Field: Got a dress on today. That's all.
Georgia Hampton: Let me tell you something. The difference in how
I felt after going to that vintage market and, yes, buying
that blue bomber jacket was astounding. And it wasn't just
that I was buying stuff again and fueling that desire engine
like before. I was intentionally deciding how this journey would
look for me specifically. A no buy just wasn't going to work
for me in the long term, and I had finally allowed myself to
realize that.
But I mean, the no buy also kind of worked because the stuff I
bought at that vintage market was filling holes in my wardrobe
I realized I had while doing my no buy. But now, I felt like I
was actually able to do what I wanted to do in the first place.
Get to know my closet is a way of getting to know my personal
style, fill in some gaps, and have fun. I wanna play this one
specific part of my conversation with Avery again.
Avery Trufelman: That's part of, like, getting right with
yourself. It's like realizing, okay, understanding who you are,
how much capacity you have for change, how much you have
changed from the past. I mean, it's like existential stuff.
Georgia Hampton: I mean, that is exactly what I wound up doing.
Just, you know, in a different way than I originally expected.
I went into this whole experiment thinking that a no
buy would inspire me to play, to be innovative, to challenge
myself to get out of my fashion comfort zone. But what the no
buy really showed me was that I had filled my closet with
clothes that would never let me out of that comfort zone in the
first place. And it certainly proved to me that performing,
being dressed, even for an imagined audience, was not going
to inspire me at all.
The possibility of being observed as I struggled through
this only made me scared that somehow I had already failed.
Kyle was right about that. The only way, at least for me, to
succeed at this process was to stop posting about it. Thank you
to both Avery Truffleman and Kyle Chaeka for helping me
through the maze of this no buy journey. In the end, I decided
to switch from a no buy to a no new, as in only buying
secondhand clothes.
That felt really good. And it's honestly something I'm going to
keep doing well past the seventy five day mark, which I reached
on March 22. But I know this is only one of countless ways to
reexamine your wardrobe. So I'd be very interested to hear about
what has helped you connect with your style and with your
relationship to clothes. I mean, I'm still looking for new
tactics, so tell me what's been helpful.
I wanna hear about it. All the ways to contact us are in the
show notes.
Hans Buetow: In the blue corner, weighing in at four pounds
sixteen ounces is Jason's keyboard.
Jason Oberholtzer: I can keep it. Jason, do
Hans Buetow: you wanna tell us who we have?
Jason Oberholtzer: How much my keyboard weighs? Is that what
you want me to tell you? I think I have that. So today, I'll be
typing on a high ground hunter x hunter performance 65% scale
wired magnetic linear dynamic actuation switch gaming keyboard
with rapid trigger Hisoka edition.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm sweating. I'm sweating.
Georgia Hampton: That thing's street legal?
Hans Buetow: And in the red corner, the host of the show,
the keyboard with the mostest, Mike Rugnetta. Mike, what you
what are you packing over there?
Mike Rugnetta: I am typing on a Royal Kluge r s 61 no. RK? Hold
on. Let me check. Royal Kluge r k 61 mechanical keyboard.
Hans Buetow: Mike, take your corner in the right. Jason, take
your corner in the left.
Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. I'll see you in hell.
Hans Buetow: Gentlemen, position your microphones.
Mike Rugnetta: Jason, I think we can still be friends after this.
Jason Oberholtzer: We'll see about that.
Georgia Hampton: This is the last episode of the show.
Hans Buetow: Alright. Bring up monkeytype.com. Are the
competitors ready? Hold your hands up. I wanna see hands up.
Hands up in the screen. And I want you to start typing in
three two one go.
Georgia Hampton: Experience of
Hans Buetow: this. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: This is pretty brutal.
Hans Buetow: Mike's eyes are locked.
Jason Oberholtzer: Turns out these scale difference matters.
Hans Buetow: Jason's eyes are going up and down. Up and down.
Look at that from Jason. Oh. You should have got
Georgia, Field: those little cover covers.
Mike Rugnetta: Oh, My space bar doesn't work.
Hans Buetow: Oh, this oh,
Mike Rugnetta: no. Oh, this is flag on play.
Hans Buetow: Oh. That's right. That's right. Keyboard down.
Keyboard down.
Georgia Hampton: Technical difficulties. Yes. Someone get a
medic.
Jason Oberholtzer: Ahsoka wouldn't stop for you, and I
won't either.
Mike Rugnetta: Oh my god. This is oh my god. This is tragic. I
have to push so hard on the space bar. This is what I get
for buying a used keyboard.
This is
Hans Buetow: not what it sounds like when we are in production
meetings normally. Normally, everyone's Hans, why are you
lying? Every
Jason Oberholtzer: time I look down, the changing lights
distract me. Oh my. I'm done.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm not I am not even close. Not even close.
Hans Buetow: Jason. Wow.
Mike Rugnetta: I did not get to 50 words.
Hans Buetow: What? Was it a space bar issue? Was this an
equipment failure?
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. It was a space bar issue.
Georgia Hampton: Hate to see it, folks.
Mike Rugnetta: Hate to see it. It is a poor competitor who
blames their tools.
Jason Oberholtzer: It's almost like somebody with the nen
ability bungee gum made your space bar a little sticky.
Georgia Hampton: We'll run that one by the stewards.
Mike Rugnetta: Jason, well played. Just don't ask my
accuracy score.
Georgia Hampton: No. I gotta know. I gotta know since we're
now competitors.
Jason Oberholtzer: 67%. Not great.
Georgia Hampton: Well, it will be a pleasure to to fight
against you, Jason.
Mike Rugnetta: Type. Type type again type against Georgia
unless you have other plans.
Georgia Hampton: Well, I'm on my way. Let's just say that.
Hans Buetow: Stay tuned for more drama.
Mike Rugnetta: The internet is infrastructure, obviously. Wires
in buildings full of machines and people in those buildings
making websites, but it's also an institution. In the sense of
it being a practice, a set of relationships between things.
Something that is done versus something that simply is. And as
we're learning now in many different ways across the world,
institutions can be surprisingly fragile and their continued
existence can depend on not very much at all really.
Some spit in paper clips, toothpicks and bubble gum. In a
sense, the internet as you and I know it at least is humming
along because no one has pressed too hard on any particular
toothpick. One of which is called section two thirty.
Senator Dick Durbin, democrat from Illinois, and senator
Lindsey Graham, republican from South Carolina, are gearing up
to put forward legislation possibly as soon as this week
that would repeal section two thirty. We wanted to understand
more fully what section two thirty does, why it's so
important, and why politicians might wanna get rid of it and in
so doing potentially completely reshape the internet.
So we talked with Tech Dirt's founder, Mike Masnik. Joining us
is Mike Masnik, the CEO and founder of the Copia Institute,
a tech law and speech think tank which operates the blog Tech
Dirt that reports on the legal and policy issues faced by the
tech industry with particular focus on privacy, free speech,
and copyright. Since August 2024, Mike has also been on the
board of the microblogging social media platform Blue Sky.
His white paper protocols not platforms, a technological
approach to free speech in part inspired the creation of Blue
Sky. He's also the host of Otherwise Objectionable, a
podcast about the origins of the tech boom, debates over speech
and liability online, and section two thirty, which is
what we're gonna be talking about here today.
Mike, I'm a big fan of you and your work. I've been following
you for a long time, so I really appreciate you coming on the
show to talk to us.
Mike Masnick: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm always interested
in talking about this stuff with smart knowledgeable people, so
Well,
Mike Rugnetta: we'll see. Don't let's not
Hans Buetow: get ahead of ourselves here.
Mike Rugnetta: So you're here to talk to us about section two
thirty. For listeners to the show who might not know what
section two thirty is, it was included in the Communications
and Decency Act of 1996, and it reads as follows. It's very
short. No provider or user of an interactive computer service
shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any
information provided by another information content provider.
And I've seen you and other people describe this as
essentially 25 words which make the Internet as we know it
possible.
And before we talk about why someone would want to change or
repeal this, I was wondering if you could just tell us what it
was intended to do at the time. Like, what do these 25 words
mean?
Mike Masnick: So it's 26 words.
Mike Rugnetta: 26. I didn't count right. Okay. Thank you for
the thank you for the life hack check. Yes.
Mike Masnick: And there were a few different concerns about the
Internet going on in the nineteen nineties. The Internet
is early. The World Wide Web has just started. There are other
aspects of the Internet that has existed, and everyone's sort
trying to figure out what to do about it. And what became
section two thirty, which was not designed to be part of the
Communications Decency Act, It was designed to be its own
standalone act to say, if you are an interactive computer
service that you are hosting other people's content, you
can't be held liable for that content.
There is a little bit more to that law. It's not just those 26
words. Mhmm. But, you know, the idea was like, this is a better
approach. What we're saying is that if you're running an
Internet service, you can choose to take down any content that
you want.
You can choose to leave up any content that you want. You can
choose to use all different kinds of tools and resources to
to allow users to filter. You can sort of empower everyone.
You can empower the companies to make their own decisions in
terms of, like, what types of communities do they want. If
they wanna create a gardening community.
Right? Can they say, like, no posts that aren't gardening, or
is that is that introducing liability? You know, part of
02/30 was like, yeah. You can create a gardening community,
and you can ban nonverbal speech. Yeah.
You could
Mike Rugnetta: do what you want if someone comes in and they
start wanting to talk about, like, building car engines or
whatever.
Mike Masnick: Exactly. And so the house supported it, and so
they passed it. Yeah. And so then you had two laws. You had
the senate had passed this this crazy sensorial law that was
like, take down everything.
Anything bad is illegal. And then you had this house bill
that was, you know, let there be Do whatever you want. Yeah. To
to to create the communities that you want. And the congress
and its ridiculous non wisdom, they took these two approaches
that that directly conflict with each other and just put them
together.
And then the the Cox Wyden bill became part of the
Communications Decency Act, even though it was designed to be the
opposite and opposing the Communications Decency Act. So
then you had this one bill altogether. Yeah. But then the
ACLU challenged all of the senate side of it, which got
tossed out nine nothing by the Supreme Court, and all that was
left was section two thirty.
Mike Rugnetta: Wow. And so my understanding, you know, to just
talk about, like, who benefits from the protections provided by
two thirty and what kinds of things that it does, It's not
just being able to moderate content level, decisions, like
posts that people make. This is also what allows, say, like
Gmail to implement spam filters, because that is a way of
determining what sorts of messages get and do not get to
an end user. Is that right?
Mike Masnick: Yeah. Who it benefits honestly is is everyone
who uses the Internet. Yeah. It's it's it's hard to explain
how much it benefits people. Early on, there were lawsuits
from people whose emails were caught in spam filters, and they
said, you know, we're we're suing this.
You know, it's defamatory to call our email spam.
Mike Rugnetta: Right.
Mike Masnick: And, you know, those got thrown out on two
thirty grounds. And if they didn't, like, that would be
terrible. It it it goes even further than that because, you
know, one of the elements of two thirty that is often missed, and
these are two of the 26 words that are in the law, is it's not
just about interactive communication services. It's
also about users. So it's or users.
And so if you retweet something, you are protected. You don't get
sued. If you retweet something that's defamatory, you're
protected. The person who made the speech can still be, you
know, held viable for for defamation. But also if you
forward an email, and there were Yeah.
Some of the early cases about 02:30 was someone received an
email making accusations about someone else and they forward it
to a mailing list. And the question was, who is liable for
the, you know, potentially defamatory accusations in the
email? Is it the person who wrote the the email or is it the
person who forwarded it?
Mike Rugnetta: And so because it says no provider or user of
interactive computer service Exactly. You're fine.
Mike Masnick: Yeah. So what it is saying is that whoever
created the content, they are liable, not the person who just
sort of passed it along.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. So, I mean, 02/30 has been it seems like
since its inception now, a perennially challenged piece of
law. Like, it's always on the senatorial chopping block in one
way or the other. And it's funny. It's like, it was started
as a bipartisan project and now has had bipartisan criticism.
Mike Masnick: Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: For its entire history. Like, what what is it
about two thirty that makes it sort of, like, stick in the craw
of so many lawmakers? Why why does it keep coming back up?
Mike Masnick: Yeah. It's really, you know, around twenty fifteen,
twenty sixteen that things began to change. And and, again, on
both sides. Right? You have both the Democrats and the
Republicans being mad about it.
And the reality is that it appears to be that both of them
want to control the Internet better for their own interests.
You know, the First Amendment is there and it protects lies and
disinformation with a few exceptions. Very narrow
exceptions. There's obviously defamation. There's fraud.
There are things like that. What the Democrats tend to be mad
about is that social media companies were not more
proactive in trying to take down the the disinformation, which
again is not entirely true, which is where the Republicans
got mad at all of it. Because especially, you know, post
twenty sixteen election, there were lots of concerns about
election misinformation, election disinformation. And
because the public spoke out about it, because the media
spoke out about it, and importantly, because advertisers
began to pull their advertisements from Facebook and
from Twitter and saying, like, we won't support a platform that
is pushing election disinformation. Yeah.
The companies themselves had a business reason to actually try
and tackle that. The response then though was Republicans
freaking out and saying this is censorship.
Mike Rugnetta: Because they're because they are saying it's a
it's a political position and not incorrect information being
right, of course.
Mike Masnick: The reality is that the scale of the process of
what's called now trust and safety of handling this kind of
information is beyond your imagination. It is an impossible
problem, and mistakes are going to be made. And some of the
mistakes are just because people disagree subjectively over does
this cross the line or not. Some of it is just because the
frontline people have, like, fifteen seconds to make a
decision on some of these things.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
Mike Masnick: Right? And and you're never going to be able to
get all those things right. But section two thirty, part of the
importance of it is it says, like, if you make a mistake
because you're going to make mistakes, you're going to make
many mistakes every day, you don't get punished for it.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
Mike Masnick: If you were to take that away, that actually
makes it more difficult to moderate content because any
mistake could create the potential for legal liability.
And so, you know, the the result then would be taking away
section two thirty depending on how you look at it. There's a
few different things of where it could go. But one aspect of it
is that many sites would then decide not to look. Yeah.
If they don't moderate at all, then they cannot be held liable
under the First Amendment. And so the incentive then is to just
look the other way and try not to find out any of the bad
content. And then your website gets filled with spam. And
again, like, you know, if this is supposed to be a gardening
forum and you can't weed out spam or off topic subjects or
anything like that, or you might introduce liability, it it would
be impossible, and we would not have the kind of openness of the
Internet that you want. So either you get to that point
where you do no moderation at all
Mike Rugnetta: And you have just a complete cesspool, like, murky
swamp of everything.
Mike Masnick: Garbage. Awful. Nobody even likes it. Even the
people who are like, no. We don't want any censorship.
Mike Rugnetta: They wouldn't like it.
Mike Masnick: They wouldn't like the spam. Or you have sort of
the Netflix style Internet, which is like, okay. This is
just purely broadcast. We are just picking and choosing the
few things that you are able to see, and it's not an interactive
service. It's now a broadcast service.
Mike Rugnetta: So I mean, that completely without 02:30, the
way the Internet looks completely changes, basically,
overnight.
Mike Masnick: Exactly. Yeah. It is a very, very different
Internet.
Mike Rugnetta: The people who do wanna get rid of it, why do they
want that? Or do they not actually want it?
Mike Masnick: I don't think anyone really wants it, but I
don't think they fully understand the implications of
it.
Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
Mike Masnick: And so, you know, I think a lot of it is just
control. Right? That that these people want the Internet to be
in the image of what they want. And often with critics of of
section two thirty, they have very strong feelings of what the
Internet should look like in their ideal world. And it
doesn't because people are terrible sometimes and people
are different.
But a lot of people think, well, if only the Internet match my
view of what it should be, then it would be great. And the best
way to get there is to remove two thirty.
Mike Rugnetta: But really what they're saying is like, if only
there were no people who bothered me in the world.
Hans Buetow: Yes. Yes. Okay. Got it. Great.
Mike Masnick: It's an unrealistic view of the world,
but I don't think they're fully understanding the implications
of it or how the Internet works fully, how section two thirty
works, and and how the the First Amendment underlies both of
those.
Mike Rugnetta: And who is it that is making this push now?
Who's the group of people behind it?
Mike Masnick: So there are a number of politicians, again, on
both sides of the political aisle who have been gunning for
section two thirty for a while. On the Republican side, you have
Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn to some extent.
Ted Cruz really was one of the first to to come out and really
yell about section two thirty, completely misrepresenting it,
by the way, as as part of the that process. On the Democratic
side, you have Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut,
Dick Durbin, Amy Klobuchar. But so you have this sort of
bipartisan approach
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
Mike Masnick: To getting rid of section two thirty. And now the
proposal that that we're expecting to come out soon, in
theory, is one that will be headlined by Graham and Durbin,
bipartisan, and the plan is to sunset section two thirty and
basically say, by the end of twenty twenty seven, we would
just wipe out section two thirty and it would be gone from the
laws on the books.
Mike Rugnetta: So listeners to the show will recognize
Blumenthal and Blackburn is also having been involved in COSA
Yes.
Mike Masnick: Which is
Mike Rugnetta: part of another sort of like moral panic of like
the Kids Online Safety Act, we have to protect children. Again,
from pornography and sex trafficking and various content
level evils, which much like Fosta Sesta, a lot of its
critics will say will cause more problems than it will solve,
pushing things further into the fringes. In that group that you
just mentioned, I think it was Durbin who had also said, you'll
correct me maybe if I'm wrong, that it's like, we're gonna set
a date, it will sunset by 2027, but we don't actually want that
to happen. We don't we're not we don't actually want to get rid
of two thirty. What we want is for the social media platforms
to come and talk to us about regulation.
Can you what is in
Hans Buetow: in a word,
Mike Rugnetta: what like, why write a law? Why write
legislation if you don't actually want it to happen?
Mike Masnick: Yeah. It it is very much the give us what we
want or we'll shoot the Internet kind of of a Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Really is like a it's like a hostage situation,
really. And, like, it's not, you know, they're using the back end
of a screwdriver as a hammer. Like Yes. What like, why? Do you
like
Mike Masnick: Yeah. Instead of recognizing that the problem is
them and that they don't really understand what they're doing,
they're blaming because it's easy to do this, they're blaming
big tech and saying, like, oh, big tech lobbyists. Every time
we try and change section two thirty, the big tech lobbyists
descend and they're too powerful and it's like this big deal. And
so, therefore, we have to, like, give them an ultimatum. And the
only way to give big tech an ultimatum is to try and take
away two thirds entirely.
Mike Rugnetta: Which is just extremely not true.
Mike Masnick: Right. Mark Zuckerberg has come out and
said, and Facebook or Meta's, you know, official stance is
that the law should be changed. And the ways that they are
suggesting changing it would effectively dismantle section
two thirty. And people say, well, why would they do that if
that's going to lead to more liability for them? The reality
is that what section two thirty does well, it protects smaller
platforms much more than it protects bigger platforms.
Mhmm. The bigger platforms may face more legal threats without
section two thirty and more liability, but the First
Amendment will still protect them. The difference is that in
a section two thirty case where a platform can use section two
thirty, you can get it dismissed at the earliest stage. It
probably costs a company about a hundred thousand dollars to get
a case dismissed on two thirty grounds. If you're getting a
case dismissed on first amendment grounds, it's much
more involved.
It goes deeper into the process. You have to do a bunch of other
things. It's probably more along the lines of $2,000,000.
Mike Rugnetta: So all the small platforms can't afford that?
Exactly. They're gonna go away. Yeah. Right.
Which Facebook loves.
Mike Masnick: Which Facebook absolutely loves because right
now Facebook is losing users, and they're finding that there
is more and more competition that is a problem for them. But
Facebook also has a building full of lawyers. Right? If they
start facing a whole bunch of lawsuits that are about
2,000,000 a pop that they're going to win, and they know
they're going to win because the First Amendment will still
protect them, they can afford many of those lawsuits and
they'll just go to court and they'll win. And it'll cost
them, you know, whatever, $50,000,000.
That's pocket change.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Couch couch cushion money.
Mike Masnick: Exactly. But for smaller companies, for others,
you know, for little forums, for any new competitor that is
coming up, that is existential. You get one or two of those
lawsuits, many of those will go out of business.
Mike Rugnetta: So I have two follow ups to this. One is just
sort of like, I have a side question and then an actual
follow-up. The side question is like, is this also a way it
seems like they're already going this way, but is this also a way
for Facebook to be like, listen, we didn't wanna moderate
anything anyways. So we we're we could just get to stop and that
rules.
Mike Masnick: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think they
would love it.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. My, my actual follow-up is from the
perspective of someone who is a lawmaker and who is ostensibly
invested in the health of the American economy, which, like,
at this moment, that might be a strange thing to claim a
lawmaker is interested in. But Yeah. Do they just not know that
this is a a, like, death blow to the kind of economic development
that has been, like, really, like, the signature
accomplishment of the country for the last thirty years, or do
they think that they're helping that in some way?
Mike Masnick: It it's a little unclear to me, and I think there
are different motivations for different different ones. I
think there is the moral panic aspect of it. There are a number
of groups who are really focused on things like child safety. I
think they're incorrect in thinking that two thirty is the
problem when actually two thirty is what allows companies to
experiment and try and figure out ways to protect children and
to do more to keep children safe online without facing legal
liability. There's also the entertainment industry,
Hollywood and the record labels spent many years fighting the
Internet companies over copyright issues, and mostly
lost.
And some of the Hollywood Lobbyists effectively decided,
well, now we lost the copyright fight, but we're going to
destroy tech companies however we can, and section two thirty
is is our next target. And so suddenly, you had these people
who had been fighting on copyright stuff suddenly showing
up in congress experts. And I was like, you have no knowledge
or experience with section two thirty. Why are you testifying
as a section two thirty expert? And so you have elements of both
of those in this effort to to undermine two thirty.
You have the people who see it as like, oh, we're gonna profit
from this, and you have the people who are making the sort
of moral arguments incorrectly, I think, where they don't really
understand the the nuances and complexities here.
Mike Rugnetta: What other tools do lawmakers have to get this
work done instead of threatening two thirty? Like, are there
other ways for them to get what they want?
Mike Masnick: I actually do think there are a lot of tools,
most of which are totally ignored. And I have been working
on a paper of like all the tools that that politicians should
look at before they get to two thirty. Oh, wow. But I've been
working on it forever, and and I never get it done because so
much other stuff is happening.
Hans Buetow: We shouldn't have had you on this podcast. You're
we've taken fifty five very important minutes from your
life.
Mike Masnick: But it's you know, there are a whole bunch of other
tools. Obviously, like antitrust is a big one. Right? If you're
worried that companies are getting too big, you have
antitrust tools that you can use. Bigger ones though, I
think, are even more important.
There's there's a law called the CFAA. And I bring this up all
the time and everyone stares at me blankly and they're like,
what is that? The CFAA is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
And it was written in theory to to stop computer hacking. It's
very poorly written and it's very vague and it's been abused
in all sorts of ways.
Because it talks about authorized or unauthorized
access. And what is authorized access? Well, somebody says,
well, if you violate the terms of service, that's no longer
authorized access, and we can sue you for computer hacking.
But where that has become really a big problem, I think, and I'll
go back to Meta as the example of this, which was in the sort
of, you know, 02/2010 time frame. I forget exactly when
this started.
There was a company called Power Ventures that they had created a
dashboard that let you look at multiple social media back when
there was most multiple social media in one unified interface.
You gave power your logins and it would go log in to Meta and
or not Meta then, Facebook and and whatever else was out there
and give you a single unified dashboard. Facebook sued them
claiming that they violated the computer fraud and abuse act
because they claimed it was unauthorized access. I don't
think it was unauthorized access because the user themselves was
providing their own logins. They were giving authorization for
that.
But they won. And that sort of stripped out the ability for
there to be, you know, a way to get out of of the Facebook silo.
Right? You know, I also think, like, patent law has often been
used to shut down competition. The issue inherent in all of
this is who is controlling your experience online, and people
are upset about certain billionaires in the in most
cases, you know, controlling your experience and
manipulating.
Yeah. Manipulating what you see or what you don't see. Right?
That's the underlying concern that I think a lot of people
have and it's legitimate. But the way you get around that is
if there is real competition and if you can still communicate
with people without having to be pulled into the manipulation
engine part of it.
And so patent law, CFAA, there are antitrust in some cases.
There are ways to deal with that that isn't break the entire
Internet.
Mike Rugnetta: Sure. So the future at this point is, like, a
little bit uncertain. We know that legislation may be incoming
at some point or another. We don't know exactly when. Like,
what should people look out for?
Like, what is the next six months to a year look like?
Mike Masnick: Yeah. Well, to some extent, I wish I knew.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Of course.
Mike Masnick: It would let me plan stuff a little bit better.
It it does come a little bit haphazardly. You know, the issue
really is what is congress gonna do? And so watching what is
coming out of the senate in particular, and just seeing
where these things go. And I would say being very careful
about, you know, who you trust on these issues.
We need people out there speaking about how important the
Internet and the ability to speak is and the ability to use
alternative services, whether it's small forums or alternative
social media, how important that is, you know, people really need
to speak up about it.
Mike Rugnetta: So in addition to your show, otherwise
objectionable, what are the other places that people can go
online to learn more about this?
Mike Masnick: So, obviously, Tech Tirt, I've been writing
about it forever. Yeah. And so you can follow me there. I am on
Blue Sky, and so I'm often commenting there on it. There
are lots of other excellent people who are covering this
stuff.
Eric Goldman is a professor at Santa Clara law professor at
Santa Clara University. He has a blog that covers almost every
section two thirty case. It's like the best database of what's
going on. Jeff Kosseff, is a law professor at the Naval Academy,
wrote the book, The 26 Words That Created the Internet. He's
been following this stuff closely.
EFF, as an organization, has obviously been paying close
attention to this. The ACLU, brought the original case that
that got the Communications Decency Act cost out. All of
them have been following this and working on these issues. All
of them are worth following, and they do an excellent job of
keeping people up to date on these things.
Mike Rugnetta: Great. We'll put links to all those things in the
show notes. And, yeah, we'll put Tech Dirt right at the top.
Can't co cosign, I've been reading it for years, and it's
an indispensable source for all of this stuff. So thank you for
all of your hard work.
Always appreciate that. That goes constantly to the
grindstone.
Hans Buetow: Let's get ready to cookie clack. It's a beautiful
day here for the final round of the team takes sighting tests
Mike Rugnetta: on Neverpost. In the blue corner, Georgia
Hampton. Ow. Ow. Ow.
With an accuracy of 92%. Oh.
Georgia Hampton: I know
Hans Buetow: that's right. That's a lot to come
Georgia, Field: up against. Right.
Hans Buetow: It's gonna be tough for our other competitor, Jason
the whip fingers overholzer.
Mike Rugnetta: Good try, Hans. Nice. Nice one. With an accuracy
of redacted. That's none of your
Jason Oberholtzer: Not accuracy. It's about vibes.
Hans Buetow: But, Mike, how do you like the chances of each of
these two competitors?
Mike Rugnetta: You're asking me to choose a child and I refuse
to, but Georgia is gonna smoke Jason.
Jason Oberholtzer: I am going to try to get an accuracy at least
above 80, which will slow me down. But I think it is a more
fair way to do this competition.
Mike Rugnetta: Jason is going for the political victory. You
know why I lose?
Jason Oberholtzer: Because I chose to.
Georgia Hampton: It's actually ethically
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Better. Alright. Georgia, to your corner in the
left. Jason, to your corner in the right.
Jason Oberholtzer: Here I go.
Mike Rugnetta: I wanna see hands up. You're gonna start typing on
type. Ready? 321. Type.
Hans Buetow: Oh. Oh, it's a strong showing.
Mike Rugnetta: Jason looking down not as much as
Hans Buetow: last much. Yeah. He's more comfortable. He looks
way more comfortable on this on this smaller scale.
Mike Rugnetta: I will say Georgia is statuesque.
Hans Buetow: I now see what I was up against, and, I never
stood a chance.
Mike Rugnetta: Jason, looking like he's having a good time.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Oh, some deep breaths. Some deep breaths.
Mike Rugnetta: Got enough. Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer: I understand it now.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Yeah. He's got it. This, it looks like the
strategy of improving his accuracy might be paying off for
him.
Jason Oberholtzer: I understand it now.
Hans Buetow: This this is close to yeah. This is what you like
to see, folks, in the final. This is it. To the wire. Both
competitors strong, coming in hot,
Mike Rugnetta: giving it their all. And
Hans Buetow: it's coming down to the wire. We're getting close.
Jason Oberholtzer: I was 92 words in.
Hans Buetow: So close.
Jason Oberholtzer: Well played, Georgia.
Georgia Hampton: And that's a
Jason Oberholtzer: Good job.
Georgia Hampton: A 94% accuracy.
Mike Rugnetta: Wow. Folks, she just keeps getting better.
Jason Oberholtzer: 71% accuracy trending in the right direction.
Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: The next time we do this, we should do it on a
mobile keyboard.
Hans Buetow: Oh god.
Mike Rugnetta: Georgia Hampton, congratulations.
Hans Buetow: Congratulations, Georgia. Thank you.
Mike Rugnetta: As your prize, just mail your keyboard to us,
and we'll dip it in gold for
Mike Masnick: you.
Georgia Hampton: Perfect. I never wanna see this thing
again.
Mike Rugnetta: That is the show we have for you this week. We're
gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, April 9 for
$4. You can get a single McDonald's Big Mac in the year
02/2002. Though strangely not February or 02/2001 when they
were more than $4. For $4, you can get a venti chai tea at
Starbucks in 2014.
For $4, you can get a Mexican pizza combo at Taco Bell in
02/2001 or for $4, you could get a membership to never post right
now and support your friendly local Internet media and tech
criticism podcast. Sure. You'll get an ad free feed of the show.
Sure. You'll get extended segments and interviews.
Sure. You'll get sideshows like our watch along pod Neverwatch
or our sleep aid pod slow post. Sure, Hans will call you and
personally tell you that he loves We're we're not we're not
doing that one anymore. Really? I still think it's okay.
Fine. Fine. Fine. Okay. Sorry about that.
Well, I love you. And I'll love you more if you become a member.
NeverPoe.st, 4 dollars a month. Membership, it's good for the
soul. Neverpost's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton,
and the mysterious doctor first name last name.
Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is
Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike
Rignetta. By the sparklet of certain ciliates, cesium
practices its cricket song. Am I supposed to be impressed? My
smoothie comes with GPS.
Excerpt of We Have the Technology by Michael Robbins.
Neverpost is a production of Charts and Leisure. It is
distributed by Radiotopia.